Green Day released the video for their second single, “Twenty-One Guns” today. Thank god. Hopefully this means a whole lot less of “Know Your Enemy.”
I’m a big fan of the new album. When I first heard “Know Your Enemy,” however, I was getting ready to be disappointed. What a monotonous, boring, elementary song. I was expecting an earth-shattering revelation of what the future of my genre of music could be! When I heard in early May that the first single from Green Day was going to start playing, that they had just finished filming the video, I got my hopes up that this was going to be great: Green Day had revolutionized the genre before, and this new album was going to be a continuation of American Idiot, but BETTER! It would be everything I love about Warning AND MORE!
Then I actually heard the song. To say I was apprehensive about the album would be an understatement.
On May 15th, I went out after work to grab the album. It was Green Day, after all, it wasn’t an album that I was going to wait and see if I felt like getting it after I heard more. Even if their first single wasn’t everything I was hoping for, it was still a hell of a lot better than a lot of the other crap floating around the emo/pop-punk world.
I threw it in the CD player, holding my breath. And I got…. “Song of the Century.” Huh, okay. Radio sound effects, grainy sound. Something I could have put together after my first editing class (in fact, I did). Right into “21st Century Breakdown,” the album’s title track. This is more what I was expecting, sounds like it could have been a reject from American Idiot.
And then “Know Your Enemy.” In the context of the album, it works. However whatever A&R guy decided *this* should be the first single should be shot, because they know *nothing* about marketing a new album. A single is for promotional purposes. Get someone to like the single, they’ll buy the album. And though it’s a great arena song, it’s a terrible single. This song does not represent the best of the album, it shows the most boring, the most commonplace!
Cut down to the end of the album. The third to last song, the second single. One of my favorite songs on the album.
One of the classic Green Day recording stories is that during a lull in recording, Billy Joe pulled out his acoustic guitar and rolled tape. There was a slower song he had been playing around with, an emotional song about the bitter end of a good relationship. No one wanted that song on the album except the band. And it made it. And it turned out to be the biggest song on that album, possibly the band’s biggest single to date. That song was “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life).”
“Twenty-One Guns” is slow. It’s pretty (well, for Green Day). It’s not the most complicated song Green Day has ever played, nor is it the most musically interesting. But it’s compelling. This is not a song that you can learn how to write in a three hour seminar. This is something that comes from an artist spending years honing his craft. It’s emotional. It’s powerful. It’s beautiful.
I can see them playing this song in front of sold out stadiums, giant screens with close-ups of Billy Joe’s face, fireworks and pyrotechnics exploding around the stage.
I can see them playing this song 10-15 years from now, being inducted into the hall of fame.
I did not see that video in any way, shape, or form. Them in a room? (Even though it was cool they finally had their other guitarist in a video.) Bullets shooting holes in the room (literal much?)? Two cute 20-somethings making out, echoing the front cover? It was boring, it was literal. It was worse than the video for “Know Your Enemy,” which was basically a live performance video to sell their upcoming tour.
I know videos mean less than singles, and I know neither matter all that much, but please, for the love of god, can we put some thought into it? I’m begging here.
Know Your Enemy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgvGPwEGoOI
Twenty-One Guns:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl5RTxtjfbk
One of my favorite performance-based videos, All Time Low’s “Circles” (fyi, it’s a student film, so cut it a lil slack):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzqTuGAC4lo&feature=channel_page
One of my favorite theme-based videos, Yellowcard’s “Rough Landing Holly”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLU5sNiaSpo
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